Colombia's illegal drug trade arose not with cocaine but with the "marijuana bonanza" of the 1970s. American Peace Corps volunteers kicked off the boom after running across the "Santa Marta Gold" strain that grew on the Caribbean coast and bringing the "luxurious marijuana of heady strength" back to the States. It proved so popular that, by 1979, Colombia was providing "roughly two-thirds of all the pot smoked" in the U.S., according to Time Magazine. The war on drugs, officially declared in 1971 by President Richard Nixon, would soon bury the industry.
Half a century and tens of thousands of violent deaths later, Colombians had their first chance to elect a presidential candidate with an unequivocal legalization agenda last Sunday. Rodolfo Hernandez—a 77-year-old TikTok-famous construction tycoon who was a neophyte on the national political stage—campaigned on an anti-drug-war platform. The drug business, Hernandez argued, needs a capitalist approach instead of repression and violence. "The most dangerous thing about drugs," he said, "is prohibition."
